Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon.

, yesterday explained that the National Assembly voted in favour of full administrative autonomy for Local government councils during the constitutional amendment exercise to protect the councils from abuses of state governments.

Ihedioha, who spoke when a delegation of parliamentarians from the National Assembly of Kenya paid him a courtesy call, said developments in the polity had shown that local governments were subject to abuse and usurpation by state governments, stressing that the practice needed to be corrected.

“The House carried out extensive alterations of the Constitution with respect to Local Governments,” he said, adding, “the House made it a full third tier of government complete with the structure, finance and its operations embedded in the Constitution itself.”

Ihedioha spoke on a day that the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, hailed the move as the beginning of the journey to entrench democracy in the grass-roots and the accompanying delivery of democracy dividends.

This came as the Organised Labour rejected the decision of the National Assembly to remove minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative exclusive list and asked workers to prepare for a nationwide strike.

Too much power at the centre — Ihedioha

Ihedioha regretted that political powers and resources were concentrated at the centre, saying it was responsible for the country’s stunted  growth and development.

He observed that Nigeria’s past and present constitutions allocated more resources to the central government, leaving the federating units to bleed.

Ihedioha, who is the chairman of the Ad hoc Committee on the review of the 1999 constitution  said that the imbalances necessitated the amendment.

His words: “A perusal of the various constitutions of Nigeria since 1960 shows that the Exclusive List had constantly been increasing mainly as a result of military involvement in governance. Resources are concentrated at the centre, such that the Central Government takes more than Fifty (50)’percent of allocation from the federation account. This state of affairs has created challenges of development at the constituent units where there are noticeable paucity of resources.”

According to him, the need to give more powers to the states was also one of the reasons certain items had been removed from the Exclusive list in the recent amendment to the 1999 constitution.

“Certain items have been moved from the Exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list such as Railways, Stamp duties, Pension, Road Safety, Youth, Environment, Arbitration, whereas certain matters that are residual in nature like Health and Housing have been moved to the concurrent list. The idea is to devolve more power to the constituent units of the Federation,” he said.

Earlier in his address, the Leader of the Kenyan delegation, Hon. Njoroge Baiya said they were in the country to learn from Nigeria’s legislative experience on constitution amendment and oversight functions among others.

LG autonomy is a welcome devt — Okafor

Reacting to the National Assembly decision, President of ALGON, Ozo Nwabueze Okafor, told Vanguard that it is welcome move that will accelerate development in the country.

His words: “It is a welcome development. The people of Nigeria now have the opportunity to hold local government administrators accountable for all their actions because there is no longer administrative hiccups and financial impediments to carry out their job. They will operate without hindrance. We can now reach our councillors and chairmen.

“It is the beginning of the journey to truly entrench democracy in Nigeria. When we have a democratically elected councils that are independent and autonomous, the people will be the better for it because the councils are the closest government to the people.”

Organised Labour kicks

In relation, the Organised Labour is annoyed with the  aspect of the amendment that removed minimum wage from the Exclusive list.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, at the Public Hearing by both the Senate and House of Representatives, warned that deregulation of the National Minimum Wage would create unprecedented industrial unrest in the country among other consequences.

Among affiliates of NLC that spoke against the move yesterday were the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN; National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE; National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers, Steel and Engineering Workers Union; National Union of Food Beverage and Tobacco Employees; Iron and Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria; National Union of Banks, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, among others.

Reacting to the decision, umbrella body for senior civil servant in the country; the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, vowed to join other affiliates of the TUC and the NLC to down tools following the decision of the National Assembly to remove wage and other labour issues from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent list.

In a statement issued in Lagos and signed by its President, Mr. Bobboi Bala Kaigama, and the Secretary-General, Mr. Alade Bashir Lawal, the union called for total resistance to the federal lawmakers’ move to further impoverish Nigerian workers by outlawing the meagre National Minimum Wage, NMW, through the back door.

“We urge the trade union movement, civil society groups, religious leaders, royal fathers and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the National Assembly to reverse its decision to deregulate wages in the interest of peace in the country. It is surprising that the National Assembly wants to complicate the security challenges in the country by inviting millions of Nigerian workers to take to the streets by its insensitive decision to deregulate wage,” they said.

ASCSN argued that the monthly take home of each federal lawmaker is about N30 million yet they are pained that Nigerian workers receive N18,000 monthly minimum wage, which is about $109 per month.

According to ASCSN, federal lawmakers are entitled to innumerable allowances such as hardship, furniture, wardrobe, recess, accommodation, utilities, domestic, entertainment, personal assistant, vehicle maintenance, leave and severance package, etc.

“It is also on record that the Nigerian Federal Lawmakers are the highest paid in the world earning more than the President of the United States of America.”